Death dominates life. Living is just a concatenation of small deaths that culminates in absolute and irreversible death. It may be something that goes unnoticed, we may not even be aware of it, but we ourselves also die many times over the course of our lives. In twenty years, there won’t be even the slightest vestige of the person we are in the present. Time and experience will erode all our ideas, all our feelings, will deform what we are until we can’t recognize ourselves. But the paths of fate intertwine and sometimes lead us back to where we started and we can talk to the ghosts of what we were. And you take me back to a person I was and loved, whom I tried to save by all means until I had to resign myself to abandon her and let her die. You pronounce her name and talk about the old dreams, the old hopes, promises that she thought had been extinguished in the confusion of the world, to raise her out of her tomb, back to life.

In your eyes I see what I was clearly reflected: I see my own feelings, my own fears, my own pain, my own hopes that you now project in me and to that vision my heart trembles and moves, engendering something new that wants to be born and grow because of the simple tenderness of your love and the loyalty it gives off. Then I think that reality can also be wrong. Maybe I rushed. You are the reason enough to feel an illusion that I never thought I’d feel again, and I strive to remove the soil that buries faith and trust as fast as my hands allow me while I forget the causes of their death. But I buried them many meters under the ground and, although I try to protect you from their transient absence, I don’t always manage to do it. I’m so sorry for you, for not being able to protect you from suffering because of something that is not your fault. However, the desire to protect you is a sign that I care.

There’re so many things I’d like to say to you, but language is so imperfect and limited that it can never accurately express what passes through the vague nebula of my mind. Or maybe I’m just afraid of sounding too strange. In any case, I remain silent and try to discover what is hidden beyond what you let me see, what you keep, what you project, the imprint left on you by the world, the contradictions, the unnecessary complexities, defenses, excuses and conventions that blur what you are ultimately and I seem to glimpse the light of your truth, kind and sensitive. A truth I could love.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

The first thing I think about when I wake up everyday is that you’re gone. The last thing I think every nigth before falling asleep is that you’re gone. In between those two thoughts, I manage to get out of bed and get stuff done. I’d be lying if I told that I’m depressed or sad. I used to think that leaving you would be a million times worse that it’s actually being. I miss you so much it could kill me, that’s true, but I can bear whit that risk. I love you and the last thing in the world that I’d like to do is what I’m doing: abandoning you. But you’ve left me with no other choice. It’s you or me. It was me or she. And you never chose, so finanlly I had to do it on your place. It’s been some time since a part of me has been growing more powerful, pushing me to grow up and forget about this story.

To stand firm on my decision, I try to ‘convince’ myself that you have died and, despites I want it so much, there’s no way you’re coming back because death is irreversible. The only problem with that trick is that I have to see you every single day in front of my eyes. I try to think that the person I see is not the real you, the person I used to know, but a double someone has put in your place after your death. And that’s how I survive minute by minute. Trying not to think much about the things that united us, the ideas, thoughts and experiences we had in common, the happy days we spent together. At least I could spend some time with you, at least I knew what it is like to feel close to someone, at least I came to know everything about human heart. But it’s hard to stay apart and see how you go back slowly to the place you should have never come out from, where I cannot reach you, where you belong to the others. Anyway it’s more important the arrival than the goodbye.

I’m changing again. I think I’m a complete adult now. There’s no trace of the innoncence I carried with me. Something has died deep inside of my soul with you. It’s the end of an era, the end of the person I was. And sometimes I wish I could go back in time and be that person again, I wish I could skip to the beginning and live it all over again. But I can’t. When I met you years ago, I felt like I could make an effort to know someone, to let him into my life, because I feared loneliness. Now, I’m not afraid of loneliness anymore. That is the fact that scares me the most: it seems to me I don’t need anyone, anymore.

Before I forgot it, I didn’t tell you when I said goodbye to you that I love you. I’m not sure in which form, I think love is always the same. I wish things could have been different. I wish I didn’t have to leave you this way.

We’re the first human civilization that is able to switch off and on the world whenever an individual desires to do so. Believe me, each one of us have the power to do so. It’s as easy as turning off or on your mobile phone. If it’s off, the world outside immediately dissappears, taking with it all the people, all the stories, everything that you know about what is going on beyond the walls of your house, the bounds of your city and country. Because if you get disconnected from the Internet, you also cease to exist for the world and for the rest of people. They’re too used to live connected they wouldn’t try to reach any other way like calling you on the phone or showing up at your home. And that’s what I’m going to do now, I’m gonna switch off the world for a while.

Why I would like to do so? Well, the truth is that I haven’t been feeling ok for quite a while now, and I feel I need some time just for myself so I can rest. I don’t want to know anything about anyone, and that’s not because people in my life are all bad, but there’re certain situations I don’t want to cope with right now. I just don’t have will to manage them now and I’m saying this like if I could do anything about them. They don’t depend on me, that’s why I want to stay away and come back when things turn better for me. Yes, what I’m trying to say is that I’m going to hide in my bed while I wait for the storm to finish and that is a good thing to do when you can’t do anything to make the storm stop.

The other reason why I want to stay apart from the world temporarily is that I’ve recently taken a hard decision on a person I love and I need some time to get used to how this decision is gonna affect my future and to mobilize enough will to be capable of executing this decision when the time comes. Things aren’t going to be easy, and now I see my future lonelier than ever and I feel hopeless about that, but I’ve started to think that’s better than to be suffering for a nonsense, for someone’s whim.

And, finally, I want to switch off the world because I’m really sad and tired. I think I’ve never been this down before. I almost can’t feel anything, I can’t force me to do anything, like if I had been stripped of my will. I burnt days fighting myself to get my work done, but I just can’t. I lose concentration all the time and that bothers me. I feel my life is now drifting, that I’m not capable of achieving anything, that I’ve already seen everything. That I’ve tried my best and I’m not enough and I never will. And around me people keep living their lives with emotion like if they really believed what they’re doing has a meaning, they have other people that care about them, they’re capable of loving and being loved, not like me. And I can’t stand it. I’m a pale shadow, totally replaceable compared to them. That’s the last reason why I want to hide. Like if I didn’t exist.

During others hard times I’ve been about to switch off the world, but this is the first time I’m gonna do it. I think I’m gonna start to feel better this next days. See you when I come back.

I’ve just read in the news that the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has died today. As a fan of his work and thoughts, I’m sad about him passing away, but at least he’s left us great ideas and analysis about human being and society that will help us to understand better this liquid times we live. Your insights won’t die with you. Rest in peace.

I was thinking tonight, as I cannot sleep, that the thing I hate the most to talk or think about is… myself. And it’s not because I don’t like what I see, it’s just that I can’t understand me. A contradiction, because when I see other people, I find really easy to comprehend what is going on with them, why they behave the way they do, etc. Some of them are a bit more complicated, sometimes brilliant, but it’s just for some fleeting moments, and then they go back to normal. But I’m unable and dumb at understanding myself. Everytime I look seriously inside me, the knot is so mazy I throw my hands to the head and prefer to close my eyes and leave it for another while.

Anyway, the only thing I’ve ever wanted is to do the things normal people do. Normal things like having other people, doing projects and things they feel passionate about, feel connected to family and friends, enjoying watching sports and be truly involved with their lives, feelings and the world in general. And I try to do a little scale version of this kind of normal life for myself, something I can manage, having at least someone, doing something for the future, etc. But I’m never truly connected or convinced about it. Most of it, it’s just a fake. And then I create my own habits and pretend I’m normal and my life is normal, believing in my own lie, but when something happens that breaks the routine, suddenly I look at myself and this life and I can’t scape the truth: I will never be like the others, nor I’ll ever have the things they have, do the things they do. And a storm starts where I make all kind of accusations against me, I try so desperately to know what I’m doing and end up exhausted and sad.

And why am I so special? I’m just an average person, like everyone else. If you see me walking in the street, there’s nothing in me that would make you suspect. When I was young, at school, teachers used to say: ‘This girl is so intelligent, she’ll go far’. And look at me now, I’m just another computer scientist lost in a crowd of people worse or better than me. Where does this perception that I’m strange come from? Maybe it’s just that I’m disconnected from everyone, even from myself. Maybe it’s just that I’m so bad at being with people that I can’t even be with myself. I have no idea of who I am, the only thing I am is loneliness and being strange. And sometimes I feel dispair because of that, because it wasn’t my choice, and I don’t know how to sort my life, or the person I am. And if you knew me, you’d be surprised of reading these things here, because that’s not the image I project to the outside. To the outside I’m a extemely serious and responsible, I’m a person of no jokes, and I can take over any situation regarding work or studies. But when you dig deeper, if I consider you’re a important to me, you’ll soon encounter all the contradictions and chaos within me. You’ll find that I’m botched, that I don’t know what I want. What would do when the time comes and you find out? I can’t ask you to bear with me, I can’t ask you to help me, but it’s the only thing I ever really wanted. And this is my best kept secret.